Japan’s Sekisui Chemical launched an agrivoltaics project in partnership with Terra, a unit of Japan-based Citizen Energy Chiba, to test the peformance of its perovskite solar cell technology and the effect of the PV system on plants.

The 9 cm² cell consists of a top cell based on a perovskite absorber and a bottom cell with a heterojunction (HJT) structure.

Conceived by Chinese scientists, the cell was built with new surface reconstruction strategy based on the use of 1,4-butanediamine (BDA) and ethylenediammonium diiodide (EDAI2) as surface modifiers. The device was able to retain 79.7% of its initial efficiency after 550 h.

Toyo Solar has revealed plans to open a 2 GW solar panel factory in the United States and has filed to raise $100 million for a future tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cell facility.